Travis Bader: I'm Travis Bader, and this is the Silvercore podcast.
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Some people seem naturally inclined towards leadership while others
find leadership thrust upon them.
Whether in the boardroom, the shop floor, the sports field or the
battlefield, effective leadership can easily make or break an organization.
When I was a child, I was told to memorize the following leadership is
the art of influencing human behavior.
So it's accomplished a mission in the manner.
So desired by the leader, it's an art.
Well, some people can find that they have a natural penchant towards art and
it might seem to come to them naturally.
A lot can also be learned.
In the immortal words of Vince Lombardi, leaders aren't born, they
are made, and they're made just like anything else through hard work.
I'm joined today by a man who has dedicated himself to providing
thousands of others with the tools to be effective leaders.
Welcome to the Silvercore podcast, Angus Hilsley.
Angus Hilsley: Hi, thanks for having me on.
Travis Bader: It's good to have you.
It's about time that we finally got you on here.
Angus Hilsley: Yeah.
It's been a while.
We got there eventually.
Travis Bader: You know, one of the outtakes that I had.
So we both know Jamie, Jamie Flynn, he's been on the
Silvercore podcast in the past.
And in my introduction and for me, whatever reason it is, the introduction
is always the hardest part for me.
Just getting that, that first part out and getting the conversation rolling.
And, And I'm saying he's a former speaking to his military career.
And I accidentally say he's a farmer.
Ended up making that into a bit of a, an outtake, but you actually did have
a bit of a stint where you're a farmer.
Just
Angus Hilsley: a little bit short and sweet.
Travis Bader: Well, I'd love to hear a bit about your background, what
kind of, what gives you street cred as a person who could provide advice
on leadership and, uh, kind of start getting into the, uh, And that's some
bolts of what makes a good leader.
Angus Hilsley: Okay, yeah, so I'll, um, I'll go back to when I was 15.
That's when I left school.
And that's when I went into the Army Foundation College in Harrogate,
back in the United Kingdom.
Um, and that's, uh, it's a year long course for people transitioning out of
school, looking to join the military, but they've kind of got that age buffer
where they need to kind of fill it in and they use this time to kind of fill it in
wisely by taking you through education and military training kind of thing.
So I joined Harrogate when I was just turned 16 and I was there for a year
and you go through pretty much the exact same as any normal army training,
but they also incorporate a lot of education into it as well just to try
and kind of follow on from from school.
So I done that for a year.
which I absolutely loved.
I quickly realized that the military was for me.
Mm hmm.
Um, I mean, me personally, I always knew that I wanted to be in the army.
Yeah.
As a little boy, I was always running about in the woods with camos on
and pretending to be a soldier.
Yeah.
Travis Bader: And
Angus Hilsley: reading lots of military books and stuff like that.
And I just, I quickly realized that that was the life I wanted to pursue, so.
And then once I got into this uh, Training Foundation College.
I quickly realized that it was definitely the right choice
and I had made the right call.
So We progressed through that.
I ended up doing very well through that.
That year long process ended up graduating as the top recruit out
of the whole process So I think it was just over a thousand recruits.
I managed to get the top top guy out of that Which is they have a junior rank
structure So I got the junior regimental sergeant major, which was quite a
big achievement for my first ever.
Travis Bader: That was what 16?
That was
Angus Hilsley: the 16, 16 years old.
So that was my first ever kind of
Entry into leadership and that it was something that came maybe a
little bit more naturally to me.
Um, because I quickly realized that within my platoon, boys would look to me for,
for help or guidance or boys would listen to what I was saying and they would, they
would naturally start coming to me for things that they were struggling with.
So then I started putting things together and As I progressed through there,
yeah, it done very well and I managed to graduate top of my class, which was huge.
And then from there we move on to our phase two training, which is just
focusing completely around infanteering.
Um, and that's another four months of training, pretty much the same as
what we're doing, but a lot more in depth and a lot more kind of rigorous
training, a lot more fitness, a lot more field craft stuff, um, and a
lot more kind of firearms training.
So do that for four months.
Progress to the same.
We moved through with the same platoon as what we did in the foundation college.
So it was, it was very easy for me because we had a platoon of boys that we all knew.
We'd already been together for a year.
So it helps.
Yeah.
Oh, it was, it was amazing.
So we already had an amazing bond as a platoon when we moved on to ITC Catrick.
And yeah, we just kind of got into it and everybody was great.
Like we all knew how to work with each other by then.
It takes a long time to figure people out.
And by then we'd already realized how each other work and what each other strengths
and weaknesses are and stuff like that.
So,
Travis Bader: so that'd be infantry training center,
Angus Hilsley: Catrick, ITC.
That was ITC, So.
Um, yeah, went through there, smashed through our, kind of, um, this side of
training and same again, progressed.
I managed to come out at the end with the Soldier's Medal, which was, the
Soldier's Medal is something that's not given to you by your instructors,
it's given to you by your platoon.
So the platoon do a vote, and it's, um, on who looks out for everybody
the most, who helps people the most, who do, who's the best.
people look to, to, to get guidance from and they all voted for myself, um,
which was, which was really nice and a kind of humbling experience for me.
So I got the soldier's medal and then also I got, um, top recruiting fitness
as well, which was the first recruit.
So I got two, two awards graduating out of ITC Cartrick, which was great.
So I got off to a good start.
Um, no kidding.
Yeah.
And my, in my military career and Graduating from ITC Catrick, I realised
that this was definitely the career that I wanted to pursue and I wanted to go as
far as I possibly could in the military and get to the kind of highest echelons
I could and that was always my goal.
And that was always my aim, to go for selection for the SAS, because when
I was younger, the first book that my dad ever gave me was a book by Robin
Horsfall, um, an old SAS, um, serving member, and I read it, and as soon as
I read it, I was like, That's the job.
Which book was it?
Do you remember the title?
I can't remember what it was.
It was pretty much his autobiography.
It was his whole progression through his time in the Parachute Regiment,
then on to Selection because I think he went through Selection two or three
times and then his career after that.
But it was the first ever book I read and I was like, okay, this is the job.
This is what I want to do.
So, um, so yeah, moving out of, uh, So I joined the 1st Battalion Scots Guards,
which is the ceremonial and household division, um, for the British Army.
So we're, we're first of all frontline soldiers, infantiers, but Our second
kind of secondary role is being posted outside Buckingham Palace or, um, St.
James's Palace, Tower of London, doing the Queen's Birthday Parade,
so those funny guys with the furry hats and the red tunics, that's,
that's what I did for a year, which was, honestly, it was a great time.
experience and I really did enjoy it.
It wasn't for me, but I made the most of what it was and I was a
young guy just enjoying myself in London and good for you.
Yeah, it was nice.
It was good, but luckily I wasn't there too long.
I managed to get, I managed to get out of there after like six or seven months.
So it wasn't, it was pretty good.
And from there I progressed onto my battalion, which was based up in Cartrick.
So moved up to Cartrick and then I was in battalion just doing basic kind of normal
routine training for the first six months.
And then that's when they asked me to go on to my first leadership course.
So my junior NCO carder it's called, which is your promotion to Lance Corporal.
And normally it's, it's something that's, Asked of somebody after serving
maybe three or four years in the army.
And this, this was six months.
Travis Bader: So somebody in their twenties years and you're
like how old at this point?
Angus Hilsley: Um, I was only 18 at this point, I think.
Yeah.
17 when I trained, yeah, I was 18 years old.
Travis Bader: Wow.
Angus Hilsley: So 18 years old when I first got put on that course and
it was, it was, yeah, it was crazy.
And I was like, I was definitely.
Not confident enough.
Like I knew that I'd done very well, but to get put on my promotion course
at that age I was pretty unsure.
I was like, I don't know if I can do this kind of thing.
Travis Bader: No kidding.
And you're probably in there with a bunch of people who are maybe a
bit more seasoned in there along?
Angus Hilsley: I'm in there with guys that have been in for like eight, ten years.
Some, some of them, like, they're just, they hadn't focused their
career around, kind of, um, Promotion.
It was more around other things and it started moving on.
So I was working with some guys that were Seriously, seriously, like
seasons within the military and we do a specific um Leadership course, so we are
different from the rest of the infantry.
So the Guards Division and the Parachute Regiment do ours together.
Mm hmm.
So it's called HTPRCC, which is Household Division Parachute
Regiment Centralized Courses.
Okay.
So everything that we do in terms of promotion courses, sniper courses,
anything like that, The parachute regiment, a household division, do
them together and we do them completely separate away from everybody else.
We use their own instructors and we use their own kind of like curriculum.
It's, it's completely different.
Travis Bader: Were you kind of, I don't know, uh, given a hard time or looked
down on being the young guy in there?
No
Angus Hilsley: end, like every day, nonstop.
Yeah.
Like, I don't know.
I just took it like for what it was like, I understand that.
There was definitely a lot of guys that were probably quite bitter
towards it and they were like, what's this guy doing on here?
Like he's not done anything.
He doesn't deserve to be here.
I got it.
Like I understood.
And then that's why I kind of voiced my opinions to my platoon sergeant
when I first got to battalion.
I was like, surely there's boys that are more qualified and
like, and they deserve it more.
And they're like, yeah, they do probably, but we think you've got great potential
and we want to take a risk on you.
And we want to, we want to put you on and see how you do.
It's a
Travis Bader: bit of pressure.
Hey,
Angus Hilsley: Yeah, huge.
Yeah, so it was, it was a lot to take in.
But yeah, we done, um, so before our promotion courses, we do pre courses.
So I've done a two week pre course in Battalion.
And, um, There was quite a lot of us on it actually.
It was kind of like a selection process.
So I think there was about 20 or 30 guys and you kind of just go through all
the basic stuff, fitness, um, firearms, um, medical, all the stuff that you
are going to get assessed on and use.
And then they just put it all together and they kind of like give
you an overall grade at the end.
And I think there was 10 of us that went down and then, so.
Wow.
So went down onto my, um, junior NCO carder, got on it.
There was a big course.
We had, I think a hundred and 20 people, 130 people on this course,
which is a lot for just parachute.
Um, yeah, that's like a, a huge course.
Normally they're about 60.
So, so yeah, already we had a lot of competition, but that's good.
Yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
And yeah, everything went well.
And then we got into the course and Yeah, I immediately started
realizing that age definitely doesn't matter when it comes to leadership.
It's experience definitely helps, but I think some people either take to it
a lot quicker than others do, and then others need to kind of build on it ever
so much, but it was something that did come slightly easier to me, I feel.
And I think that that definitely stood me in good stead for this course.
There was a lot of things that I needed to learn because I was so new.
I had boys that had done two, three tours of Afghanistan and Iraq on this course
and they, they obviously knew so much more about combat, leadership, basic skills
and drills, like all these little things.
I was just soaking it all in.
Like, I like, I just, I never put my ego out there.
I just stay quiet, listen to all these guys and just
everything that they were saying.
I was just taking as much in as I could and it was one of the biggest educational
experiences that I've ever had.
Travis Bader: Why do you feel that the leadership portion of this seemed
to come a bit more naturally to you?
Angus Hilsley: I'm not too sure to be honest.
Like if I go right the way back to school, um, even in school
it was, it was much the same.
Like we used to have.
Like different kind of teams in school for sports events and stuff like that,
like I was always made the head of the sports teams and these kind of different
things we've done in school, like Burns Night for you and me first night.
Yes, yeah.
Yeah, so we used to have Burns Night every year at school.
I was always the chairman for the Burns Suppers, like they're just something
just always was quite natural to.
Yeah, can it take control or maybe not even take control, just having a demeanor
that people find at ease to come up to me and be like, okay, I'm, I'm stuck.
I need some help with this.
Or like, he's a fair guy.
Do you know what I mean?
I think it was my demeanor that was the main thing that
allowed people to have a kinda.
I dunno, an approachable connection to it.
Travis Bader: Maybe it's a confidence.
Have you always been fairly fit?
Like you're, you're always being serious, seriously
Angus Hilsley: fat.
Yeah.
Like as a young boy, I was always playing rugby, football, like doing
track and school and like fitness was a huge part of my life as a, as a kid.
Like, and I think that a lot of it came from when I was reading those
books about the military, when I was reading those books about boys that were
on SAS selection and they were like, Talking about the hells and it's just
like, right, you need to be a different level of fat and it's all fine and well
being a footballer, but you need to be like a robust, robust individual.
Travis Bader: Well, that's, that's physically fit both heart and lungs,
but that's mentally fit as well.
Angus Hilsley: Mental.
Yeah.
That's another huge part.
And I think that kind of started.
Making things in my head turn.
Okay.
I need to start preparing myself.
And that's when I just, I always pushed myself as hard as I could
go when it came to fitness.
Playing rugby is a pretty arduous sport and that was always good fun.
Um, but it was always tough going, but yeah.
So I think in my life, I think it was probably just me as a person,
like in terms of, How people could relate to me that made me maybe
slightly better at leading people.
Travis Bader: Did you have strong leadership role models
as a youngster in your life?
Um,
Angus Hilsley: growing up, I would say that I definitely had
a good role model as a father.
He was very old school, strict, old fashioned, but how things should be done.
And he was a superintendent and.
the oil rigs and he'd done that for 35 years and he was always in charge
of a lot a lot of people and he always used to come home and like me and
my dad are The only thing me and my, my, my dad do is either hunt or fish.
That's it.
Yeah.
We don't do anything else.
no other, no other kinda things that we, we both enjoy is either hunt or fishing
and we always used to, that's okay.
When he came back, he always used to take me and we would go down to
the, the local L and we would get on a boat and go fishing and he
would sit and tell me about all.
experiences that he'd had when he was away working, having to deal with
people from different backgrounds, different nationalities, different,
um, seniority levels and At that time in my life, I probably didn't pay
too much attention to the leadership side of things, but subconsciously, I
think it probably started to soak in.
Gotcha.
And he was, he was a very good leader.
He promoted up very fast throughout the oil industry and
like, he, he got out of the top.
So, like, he done really good.
I think a lot of that probably came from my father.
Travis Bader: Mmm.
Well, it's, it's good to be able to have that, uh, you know, not, not nepotistic,
but, but that sort of bloodline of it, where you just, if you're raised in a
certain way and your outlook on life is a certain way, you're naturally
inclined to, to move in that path.
And it sounds like you've just embraced that path and used what you had
and then take it with the military.
And then you've tempered that for, for something yourself.
Angus Hilsley: Yeah.
It was, um, it's something that I still thank my dad for every day.
That's cool.
Just how.
Just how he rubbed off on me as a father.
And when you're growing up, you don't always think that I've got
your best interests at heart.
But he was always telling me all for things, but looking back in it as
an, uh, an adult and a fully grown man and having been through my own
personal experiences of, of having to deal with people and leadership.
Yeah, it's, uh, I can't thank him enough for it.
Travis Bader: That's pretty cool.
So you, you spent some time as a, um, uh, platoon commander as well.
Didn't you?
Angus Hilsley: Was it platoon or section commander?
Section commander.
So once I finished that first promotion course at Junior NCO
Carter, that was to Lance Corporal.
Yeah.
And I finished that course with a distinction, top, top award you can
get in that course, which was, which was That's when I started to solidify
my kind of confidence in myself, and that's when I was like, okay, right Maybe
maybe I do have the capabilities now to do what I think I can do Still hadn't
been on tour at this point though, and at this time, this is in the height of
Afghanistan So everybody had been on tour and that was a big thing was okay.
It might it might be a good Lance Corporal, but he's not been on tour.
He's never been under Like, the stress of, of contact, so I was
like, okay, right, fair enough.
Went back to my battalion, um, and then, I think it was only six or seven months.
I was 19 years old, anyway.
It wasn't long after.
Nowhere near.
And it just happened by sheer chance that one of the guys that was
supposed to be on it was, He wasn't confident in his fitness abilities.
He was like, listen, I want, I need another six months to get ready for this.
I'm not ready.
He's like, do you want it?
And I was like, I don't think I'm ready for it either.
I mean, I've only just promoted to lance corporal and, uh, my company commander at
the time, he was like, nah, you're on it.
Go for it.
Get your bags packed.
So I was like, okay, and this was for the next promotion to section commander.
So I was like, right, okay, fine.
Pack my bags again.
Headed down to Brecon and jumped on, on junior Brecon.
That's a four month long course.
It's.
very arduous first two months is all about firearms instructing.
So you learn, I think it's about 15 different weapon systems that
you'll use within the military.
Um, and you learn how to teach that to recruits.
Um, so that's your first two months that you then go through all your range safety,
how to be a range conducting officer.
Um, and after that you progress on to your two months in the field,
which is all field craft stuff.
So,
doing section attacks, all the kind of basic skills and drills of an infantryman,
and it's going through the leadership side of those environments, so that's
taking you as a section commander with your second in command, which
would be a lance corporal, and putting you under stress of fire, and under
stress of time constraints, and all these different sorts of experiences,
and that's where they kind of put you to the test to see if you've got
Travis Bader: And four months later, they looked at it and they said, what?
Angus Hilsley: Yeah, four months later, progressed through it,
got a fine, got an instructor's recommendation at the end of it.
So an instructor's recommendation means that they, that you've done that
well, that they want you to come back as an instructor to the Brecon School
of Infantry, which is a big thing.
No kidding.
Yeah, so that was awesome.
So very happy with that.
You don't promote straight away.
So once you pass your course, you need to wait a couple of months
till you can set the board.
So I finished my course and then from there I deployed straight on to Headache
17 in Afghanistan, which was great because this was now giving me the, the kind of
backing that I needed to everybody else.
Cause everybody else, that was their one gripe was, okay, yeah, fine.
It might be passing these courses, but can I actually do this when
it comes down to like the actual What we need to do for a job.
Like when it comes down to contact and we're like, okay.
So I was very excited to get out there.
I really wanted to go out and prove myself.
And we had a great team of boys.
Went out, had a great tour.
Tour was, it's what it is.
But as a whole we, we worked really well together.
Um, I had to step up and be a section commander even though I wasn't
promoted to a section commander.
I stepped up to a section commander, um, and I led.
Multiple patrols as a section commander going through the thick of it, sometimes
I had to step up to a platoon commander.
You'll have, um, sorry, a platoon sergeant.
You'll have one platoon sergeant.
So when he was away, other tasks?
Mm-Hmm.
to step up as a platoon sergeant.
So that was 20 years old and I was stepping up to be, uh, an acting
platoon sergeant on operations.
How was that received?
Hmm.
So the boys of my peer level, it was received very well because I had the boys.
My kind of age group and that I used to like socialize with,
they were all like, yeah, Angus is the man for the job for sure.
Like he's brilliant.
But the, we did have a couple of older Lance corporals and stuff that
had been in for like 15 years and yet they weren't happy about it.
Travis Bader: Cause that's going to be a common thread amongst anybody
who's finding themselves thrust or Into a leadership position or growing
into a leadership position, they're always going to have those who look
at them and say, who is this person to tell me what to do or to lead me.
And to be honest,
Angus Hilsley: that's one of the great things about being a leader is
if you have the ability to be able to communicate with people that feel like
that and still get them to do what you want them to do, then you know that.
you're doing something right.
So I definitely had a few of those types of people or a couple
of those types of guys in my platoon, but it didn't bother me.
Like, I honestly didn't care because I know that I'd been in my courses,
I'd passed it, I'd been out, I'd done patrols, I'd proved myself, like,
if these guys didn't like it, that was their problem, not my problem.
But being able to have the ability to speak to them in a way that, you
know, brings you down to the same level and you take both your egos out of it
and having that skill to communicate with them and still being able to be
operationally effective was massive.
And I learned that very quickly in Afghanistan.
Can
Travis Bader: you talk to me about ego in a leadership role?
Angus Hilsley: So this is a huge thing that I, um, talk
about in the, my business, Stoic Leadership Academy as the ego war.
So, we can take this into any type of environment, it doesn't have to be in
the military, but we're always going to have people we don't get on with, always.
There's always, it doesn't matter if they're different departments, same
department, they're more superior to us, they're, it doesn't matter, like we're
always going to have people that we just We don't see eye to eye with and it's been
able to have the skills as a leader to be able to communicate with these people.
And sometimes you have to take a big bite out of your own ego and just
accept it for what it is and say, okay, maybe this is more my fault, even
though it's not your fault, but given them the moral high ground or making
them feel as if they've got the moral high ground is a huge step into canal.
Can I like deactivate, or sorry, that's not the right word, can I?
Travis Bader: De escalating?
De
Angus Hilsley: escalating the kind of situation.
Nullifying?
Because I think that the egos is one of the biggest reasons
that things won't get done.
Is, oh, I'm not speaking to him because I don't get on with it, I don't agree with
what he does, I don't agree with him.
But as a leader you need to have the ability to be able to, see it
from their point of view, because that's the problem, is we all think
that we're right most of the time.
Travis Bader: Of course.
Angus Hilsley: We always think that this is the way it should be done,
because this is the way that we do things, and this is what I've learned,
and through all my experiences, I feel that this is the right way.
But if you look at it from their perspective, they've had
completely different experiences, completely different, and it's,
They've developed their own concept of how things should be done.
They might be completely opposite, but you need to be able to take a step back and
think, Okay, why does he think like that?
Why does he think that this isn't the right way to do it?
And once you can start putting yourself in, And, and those shoes, I think it's
very easy for it to be like, Okay, listen mate, I understand that you feel
this way, I understand that I think differently, I probably should be a little
bit more open to the way that you think.
And once you start kind of de escalating that conflict, Things
can work out a lot, a lot easier.
Travis Bader: Yeah.
And it's funny because as a leader, you look at something and
say, this is the way it's done.
I know this is how it's done.
I know this because of my experiences and how I've applied it.
This is the right way to do it.
And you can have that in your head.
But I think it was general Patton who said, don't tell a person.
How to do something, tell them what you want to see accomplished
and let them surprise you with the results and let them just go for it.
Angus Hilsley: Right.
Yeah, for sure.
Travis Bader: And a person can succeed or fail in their own right.
Yeah.
Angus Hilsley: Yeah, a hundred percent.
And that's another big thing that I teach as well is, um, you.
You get, this is why I teach anyway, you've got three
different types of leaders.
You've got power leaders, inspiring leaders, and pleasing leaders, because
everybody's always going to have their own approach to leadership, and
it depends what environment they're in, depending on depends on if they
will thrive or if they will not.
So some people that are power leaders will thrive very well in, let's say
military environments or whatever, and then inspiring leaders will thrive
completely differently to, to those guys.
But it all depends on what environment you're in and also
what type of leader you are.
But as you say, it's completely
If you start micromanaging people, that's when it's just
all going to start going wrong.
Travis Bader: I found when I reached a point where I have somebody around
me that requires micromanagement.
And then some people are just like that.
They will consistently put themselves in a position where they need to
be micromanaged because they don't want to accept responsibility
or whatever it might be.
I find I have to identify that really quick and early and adios, right?
Angus Hilsley: Yeah.
Cause that's, that's.
Like you're a busy guy.
Leaders are busy guys.
Like you don't have the time to be doing stuff like that.
Like, unless they've got the willingness to learn themselves and better themselves,
like you can't hold their hand and it's a very, very hard thing to do, but you need
to sometimes just take that kind of step,
Travis Bader: you know, one pitfall as a, so I started my business when
I was, I started teaching basically, uh, the, Uh, the main parts of what
we do in Silvercore around 1994.
I was still in high school at the time.
I went through the cadet system.
I learned their, uh, version, which was borrowed from, which is
the department of national defense leadership training, which of course
Canada borrows from the Brits.
And, uh, uh, I, I, I learned that from And, um, I, I put into play the little
pieces that I knew and what I'd learned from, uh, from different places and
wanting to build people up was one of the, uh, difficult lessons that I learned
is how to properly build somebody up.
Because you can correct a person to a point where they're just
incapable of doing anything.
You can, uh, over praise somebody to the point where it builds a
level of resentment in them because the next time they do something
and that's wrong, they're like, well, I did it so great before.
What do you mean?
Right.
So, so that, that whole balance, that dichotomy of, of, uh, Corrective
and instructive leadership in a way that's not micromanaging, and it's
also not providing sort of a false confidence in the individual was
something at a young age that I found.
I had a difficult time juggling.
Is that something that you've seen that others have?
Angus Hilsley: Yeah, it's, I noticed it the most when I went to, so, At
the end of my career in the military, I went to the Infantry Training
Centre, Kachik, as an instructor.
Um, and I spent the last five years there, instructing recruits to become soldiers.
And that's when I really seen, seen that, was when you're getting people coming
from all different experiences, all different backgrounds to life, and you're
taking them through the same rigorous training, and you're, you've got time
constraints, you've got, they've got to pass certain tests, like you've got to
progress through the curriculum, because it's, You've got six months, that's it.
It's not like you can just keep dragging this out.
And that's when you really start to see that some people just don't
want to help themselves, right?
They really just want everybody to do everything for them, right?
And we used to get, I think it was platoons of about 30 to 40 guys, and
we would take them through Obviously, we'd literally teach them everything
from making a bed and brushing their teeth all the way through to firing a
weapon system and doing bayonet training.
Like, we used to take them through absolutely everything.
But you would always get two or three people within one platoon.
So I went through at least four or five platoons.
Mm.
Whatever.
as an instructor.
But you'd always get two or three people that just didn't want to help themselves.
Like they just, no matter what approach to coaching you took.
So depending on how, because you obviously have to adapt as a leader and say, okay,
I'm going to try this approach first.
Okay, it doesn't work.
Okay, let's try this approach.
Okay, it doesn't work.
Okay.
But you can only try so many approaches until it gets to the point where,
okay, I'm sorry, but this person just doesn't have the will to,
Travis Bader: Yeah.
And it's detracting from everyone else.
If they're setting a low standard and that's viewed as acceptable.
Angus Hilsley: Well, yeah.
And it's like, I was always very strict.
I've always got high standards.
I was very strict and I think that they should have the highest
of standards at all times.
And my section that I had were great.
They always, they always used to try and put so much time into the struggling
members and stuff, but I could always see the point in which it turned.
So I would say the first two months.
It was a case of, I would go and show them how to do things, I would speak to
the rest of my guys, and then they'd be like, okay, and they would get on top of
the one person that was struggling, they'd be like, okay, what can I do to help me,
like, do you need me to take you through this, do you want me to show you how to
do this again, and they would always get around them, but I could always tell the
one point in the section where everything changed towards this person, because they
just wouldn't help themselves, there's only so much that they could do and I
could do, and then this person was kind of like, Is that a recourse or a bin?
So if that's the case and they, and they're not passing requirements,
they'll get what's called back squatted.
So they'll go to the platoon behind us, which is probably
about six to eight weeks.
They'll go back, retrain everything again.
The other thing, they'll get one more chance.
And then after that they get brown layered and they'll just get told to leave.
Yeah.
Which needs to be, at the end of the day, you're training for
something that you can't really have There's no much margin for error.
Do you know what I mean?
When it gets down to it?
So,
Travis Bader: you know, I used to spend a lot of time trying to
research ways to bring the best people on that I can on the team.
Uh, how, how can I write the best copy for a, uh, uh, helped wanted
at, how can I do the best interview to kind of weed people out?
How can I, and I go through all these different things, uh, And I've learned
that some people that just wouldn't pass the bar on this, uh, testing system that
I'd created prior could actually be really good people to work with and other people
who could just do phenomenally, like I'd look at CVS of a law enforcement come
through and they'd have Four pages of all these different little two day and three
day courses that they're an expert in.
They go through and it's like, man, this person looks great, but if they
didn't have those core values that their mother should have taught them, right.
Yeah.
It was your loss.
So instead of getting very good at hiring, I took a different mindset.
And get very good at firing, which has always been a very difficult
thing for me, because I want to see the best in everybody.
I want to see everyone succeed, but I kind of changed my perspective on get
good at firing and it's not like the Donald Trump apprentice you're fired.
It's look at you're not working out here.
Um, it's clear you're passionate about other things.
You know what?
I know people who work in the area that you're passionate about.
Let's get you over into a different area.
Let's make sure you've got a positive reference.
Let's make sure you got a little bit extra money in your pocket
as you go out of the door.
And just, I mean, when I first started, I was like, why would
I pay a person who's absolutely just humping the dog here, right?
A bit extra to get out.
And in the long run, I've found it creates a much Better environment
and I'm still learning every day.
I've learned it
Angus Hilsley: for sure, though, but it is the right way to go.
I mean, you can only take something so far.
And then you need to start thinking of how you could best help that person move on.
And a big part of, um, well, stoicism, what I My business
is Stoic Leadership Academy.
One of the virtues of Stoicism is justice.
And with justice, that's what it's all about.
Even though you might not agree with somebody or see eye to eye with
somebody, you're still gonna have basic kind of level of understanding as a
leader that this person isn't for me, but I still want to see them do well.
And it's all about helping that person that might not came from the
best background or they might not be that nicer person in general.
Like you might not think that actually a good person, but you still want to provide
them with as much help as you possibly can and kind of give them that direction that
when you can, uh, when you Once they leave your environment, you can say, I did as
much as I possibly could for that person.
Travis Bader: I agree with that.
And I think, and it might not be the case.
Everyone's perspective is always going to be different and be like,
well, I'll go 50, 50 with you.
Right.
We did, it didn't work out.
Here's we've split it down the middle.
And I found.
I have to take a mindset where I'm giving 60 percent or 70%.
Yeah.
And you just, you're taking the high, high ground, which is beyond
reproach and in the other person's head, maybe they're thinking it's
50, 50, even though in your head, you're like, no, no, this isn't right.
Angus Hilsley: It's true though.
Yeah.
It's so true.
Right.
And.
Yeah, it's a hard one as a leader, it is, it's very hard, but that's something
that all you can do is, is grow as a person from your own experiences and,
and kind of try and better yourself and approach things a little bit better and
it comes to people eventually, I think having that kind of broad dynamic of
having all these different leadership types that I talked about earlier on.
So I've, I've got a chart that I use that I teach and it's not about being
a power leader or being an aspiring leader or being a pleasing leader.
It's about having the right ratio of your pie chart of all three.
You need to assess the situation.
You need to assess the person that you're looking at and you need to say,
what, who, what leader do I need to be?
For this person to make it work and I think just having that
flexibility and adaptability in your Your skills is, is one of the
best tools you'll learn as a leader.
Travis Bader: Do you have any examples of some particularly inspiring leaders
that you've encountered or times when you've applied your leadership principles
in a way that you look back and like, man, that worked out really well.
And, uh, conversely to that, any examples of times that everything kind of went
Angus Hilsley: wrong.
So it's first starting off on good leaders, um, that I've had within my
life when I very first turned up to my battalion we had this company commander
and He was to this day probably the best leader I've ever seen in my life
Travis Bader: Hmm,
Angus Hilsley: and I never realized he was the best leader until we got
our next company commander who was the worst leader Like, I don't know
Travis Bader: Was it just because of the comparison this guy was saying?
So good that the other one looks terrible or both
Angus Hilsley: of them renowned for their respective kind of positions.
So it wasn't just our judgment as soldiers.
It was, it was the truth, but the first company commander we
had, he was literally everything that you would want as a leader.
He was.
Just inspiring, fit, robust, knowledgeable, like, very compassionate,
empathetic, like he was, he had it all and it was just natural to him.
He was one of those people that just people would, would want to follow.
And he was kind of, I would say one of my mentors for the, probably the
first five years of my army career.
And definitely the reason to where I got to.
Um, Yeah.
On the flip side to that, the one we got next was horrendous.
Morale was at an all time, all time low with that guy.
But because, what would he do that would cause morale to be low?
Always thought about himself and never about his men.
So when I was talking about my three types of leaders, power leaders,
and each type of leaders, roles.
They've got good and bad.
And with power leaders, a lot of the time, it's for their own ego.
Everything they do is for their ego.
It's not, it's not for their men.
It's for, okay, I want to make myself look good, or I want to get some
sort of gain from what I'm doing.
And that's what it is.
And that's all he ever did.
Everything was always to make him look good.
But the rest of the boys measurable.
Like if he would, He would make us stand outside for hours and hours and hours
just while he was sorting something out in his office where he could have just
told us, okay, go away, lads, go and get some food or whatever, small things
like that, small, small things that over a course of two years, that gets to
the point where guys are just like, I'm not, I'm not doing what you want, like,
Travis Bader: isn't it funny how, when you start putting others ahead of yourself,
all of a sudden it builds you up.
Angus Hilsley: So that's one of the biggest things.
I believe as a leader, if you start putting people's futures as a forefront
of what you're trying to achieve, and don't think about anything else of your
own personal gain, just really want the best outcome for that person, everything
in your life will start just automatically following the way you want it to follow.
That is brilliant advice.
It's once we stop looking at ourselves and start looking at other people and
just really wanting the best out of everybody that we're working with.
I think all the other things that we worry about just kind of start fading out.
And before we know it, we'll look back in 10 years and be like, Oh my God, like
I'm actually the person I wanted to be.
And all I've done is help people wanted to help.
Do you know what I mean?
I think it's, Such a simple tool that people forget about because it's only
natural that we want to think about our own best interests but once you
start thinking about other people's more than yourself, that selflessness.
Travis Bader: Yeah.
Well, when you're, when you're running a sports team, or you're
running a business, you're running an organization, what's the best interest?
Well, for a sports team, it's where we're cohesive and we're winning
games and we're, we're progressing and everyone's doing well, right?
The business you're, you're making money, you're working together as a team, right?
So people might not necessarily look at an individual's best interest.
They say, well, this isn't the best interest for the company.
We want to get from point A to point B, we want to be able to earn more money.
And they kind of lose sight of the, the Individual that's involved,
that's required to take you there.
And they'll say, well, come on, let's, let's put some more in.
Cause we've got to get wherever it might be.
But I think it takes a keen individual to be able to identify another individual and
what their strengths or weaknesses might be, because if they're really struggling
and they're having a difficult time.
And you're putting that pressure on for them so that your sports team or your,
your business can get to the next level.
Um, you're not thinking about them as an individual anymore.
Yeah.
And maybe the best thing you can do for that person is say,
this isn't the place for you.
Angus Hilsley: Yeah.
Right.
A hundred percent.
Yeah.
Could not agree more.
It just all depends.
It's your, your, your decision as a leader where you need to make, and
it's a, an example I've got of this is.
So when we were instructing recruits, we used to have people from some horrendous
backgrounds, really bad, like literally this was their last chance in life, and
you know the funny thing was most of these people were always the best soldiers.
Travis Bader: It's funny how that works, eh?
Angus Hilsley: Always the best.
Why do you
Travis Bader: think that
Angus Hilsley: is?
Because the
, they've just got everything to gain.
They've got nothing to lose.
Mm.
It's just they've got, they burnt the ships.
Uh, and they're humble though.
They're like, right.
They were always the humblest.
Like we had people that used to live in the streets that were drug
addicts that used to go through horrendous forms of, um, abuse.
And they were always the best.
They were always, I think just having the cohesion of having friends around
them for the first time, having.
some form of kind of not rank structure, but people to look up to
having food, like just basic things.
I think to them it was everything.
And they, they, they just, they appreciated everything they got
and they really made the most of the opportunity that they had.
But going back to the example that, um, that we were talking about before,
when you're dealing with these type of people, um, it really does make you.
When you're focusing, like, cause I, it's hard to say but I, you end up kind of
picking your favourites within a section, not that you'd ever say that, but you
always kind of see like, And it was always the people that had the worst backgrounds
that became your favorite, I feel.
I feel like people that came from privileged backgrounds were always hard
to deal with, they, like, they just, they thought they were better than everybody
else and you had a lot of things that you needed to kind of break out of them, so
you could kind of remold them as soldiers.
Whereas these guys were just, you wanted them to do well, because they
knew that this was their last shot.
Travis Bader: Maybe a bit of it, have you heard of the Sports Illustrated curse?
No, they say you get on the cover of sports illustrated and all of a
sudden you're going to go downhill.
Yeah.
Well, if you're on the cover of sports illustrated, it's probably
because you're top of your game.
Where else do you have to go?
Right.
Angus Hilsley: Exactly.
There's no, there's, there's no, there's nowhere else to go.
Travis Bader: Right.
You can, you can maybe maintain for a while, but at some point you're
going to start going downhill and.
Angus Hilsley: Exactly.
And what we were talking about before though, like seeing these people.
So when you focus your attention on these people and take yourself
out of the equation, because in the army, there's no personal gain.
You're not getting anything from this apart from your
fulfillment at the end, right?
That's it.
You don't get any more money.
Like you don't get respect of your peers.
You get your spectator peers.
Yeah, that's true.
And that's, that's what ended up happening with me after my second
platoon was I got the top instructor out of the whole battalion.
Yeah.
Because it was, I was dealing with these types of people and focusing all my energy
on these people and you don't realize it at the time, like you're just focused
on, okay, I want to get this guy through the next stage of training, I want to get
him to pass out, I want to get him to be a soldier, move on his battalion and you
don't think about your own personal gain at all because in the military there's
not really much to gain, but that sense of fulfillment at the end when they pass out
and they're passing out parade, one of the best feelings I've ever had in my life.
Travis Bader: Well, doesn't Simon Sinek say something about that?
Do you ever, do you ever,
Angus Hilsley: I'm the Bitcoin reason why.
Travis Bader: Right.
Okay.
That was good.
That was a good one.
And he talks about, you know, true leaderships are there to look after
the people that they're leading.
That's, that's their role.
It's not to, uh, you know, It's not for you to be awesome and
look at, look at this great job.
Your, your job literally is you're, you're a humble servant
for them to make them awesome.
Angus Hilsley: You need, you need to be, you need to think about your guys.
And if you just think about your guys, you will be a good leader in some respect,
like maybe not in other areas, but if you just put your men or your women or
whoever, like an army, it was always had my boys in front of everything
else and made sure that they were okay.
everything else was normally fine.
Like, and it's, that was one thing that the army does teach you very
well because they give you, the army love acronyms and formats and
those, and it's literally, as a lance corporal or as a section commander,
before you do anything to yourself, you've got to go around sectional
platoon and make sure they're fine.
So before you change your socks, before you your own food
before you clean your own rifle.
Before you do any of this, you're going around all your, all your
guys, making sure that they've got all the things that they need.
They're all doing fine.
Their morale is okay.
Once all that's done, then you start focusing on yourself.
Travis Bader: How do you turn around poor morale?
I've been in it earlier.
We're talking about some of the work that I've done across Canada.
At one point I was doing all of the armor car companies for British
Columbia, their firearms, repair and maintenance, and, and Uh, a couple
of different multinational ones.
And one of the multinational organizations, uh, had gone
and turned over numerous times and numerous, uh, name changes.
And you could see for years, the morale sliding and sliding and sliding.
Uh, if you were to come into, let's say, an, in a, you come to a platoon
that you've watched the morale just go straight downhill or a business where
the morale has been having been an issue.
What would you do to try and, uh, Change that around.
Um,
Angus Hilsley: so whatever environment it was that was coming into, if it
was a platoon or a section or if it was whatever, a business, sports,
whatever it would be, if you're coming into work with a team, um, there's a
progression system that I use on my course and principles that I use, but
you need to, first of all, observe.
So you need to just step back and watch a day in the life of this team.
How do they work?
Who speaks to who?
Who doesn't talk to who?
how do they communicate?
How do they work?
What's their efficiency?
Like you need to just step back and watch them and from there you'll be
able to gauge what's wrong and then depending on what's wrong that's
when you need to start as a leader.
You need to start thinking about ways you need to start problem solving.
Problem solving is a huge part about being a leader.
You start problem solving your way around how you're going to do that.
I feel that bond and interaction is the biggest thing for morale.
It's huge.
In the military, the bond that you get with the people that you
work with is like no other bond you'll ever get with anybody.
It's crazy.
Like, I still speak to guys every now and then after years
and it's just like, we've Yeah.
spoke yesterday, do you know what I mean?
Like you create a bond that's unbelievable.
And when you can create a team that's got such a strong bond together, it
doesn't matter what job you're doing or how bad the job is or how horrendous the
task is or whatever it is, it doesn't matter because if you're in it together,
you just laugh and joke about it and you just help each other through it.
So I think, Bond and team cohesion is the first step to having good morale.
If you, if people don't get on and you're just arguing and bickering and all these
egos that we're talking about before, if there's too many egos in there, if you
can't create a team that works, you're never going to have a team of morale.
Travis Bader: Uh, a shared adversity I found is, is something
that's pretty effective as well.
Huge.
It's massive.
Angus Hilsley: And once you start, once you start having a team, that's kind
of, let's say weathered and they've been through experiences together
and they start going through hard, hard situations, then it's going
That team will just be unbreakable.
They'll go through anything you want them to go through and it
doesn't matter how good or how bad.
That bond that they have, as a leader, you probably won't even have to do very much.
Because their bond will be that good that they can just work with each other
and their morale will always be good.
That's one thing that I always really loved about the military, was no matter
how bad things were, it was just, there's always a way to make fun of
somebody or have a laugh and like, you just, you don't take things seriously.
You just, you just do it together because you're in it together
and you just get through it.
And the thing is you do it for each other.
That's a very hard thing to do outside of the military though.
How do you make people work for each other and not make them work for the company?
That was going to be
Travis Bader: my question.
Angus Hilsley: Yeah.
That's the hardest thing.
So in the military, you work with each other because.
When it comes down to it, your life's on the line, and you're looking after their
life, and you're looking after the guys left and right here, or behind you, or
whatever it is, but at the end of the day, you're looking after each other's lives.
So, when it comes down to it, like, the bond that you build is with each other,
because, you know, if you get it wrong, then it's gonna have serious consequences.
So you take things very seriously, but when you come out, And, uh, kind
of the business world or whatever it may be, it's very hard to make
people work for each other rather than think, Oh, well, no, this is
just for the company's best interest.
Like they just want to make more money out of us or do you know what I mean?
You need to focus the gain as a team rather than outside of that team.
And for the company, it needs to be more towards how are we
going to better each other?
How are we going to.
What are we going to get out of this?
Do you know what I mean?
Travis Bader: Well, maybe, yeah, by within a company rewarding.
Maybe it might not be the top earner that's getting the reward that month, but
as a person who's provided that top order, the ability to all the leads for their
sales, or they busted their butt to make sure that they had everything in order.
So the other person could go out and do whatever it might be, and maybe changing
that reward structure of for sure
Angus Hilsley: that like, and you read all about it, as you said, about Simon
Sinek with his leadership, but he uses Costco as one of the main example,
because they've got one of the best, um, uh, Kind of reward system in the world.
And like, when you look at their company growth from way back in 1980 or 90, when
they first started, and then you look at their growth and everybody was like,
oh, there's no way that's going to work.
Like that's crazy.
And then you just see it gradually over time.
It's just like, what do they do for their reward system?
So they, they give them.
Shares in the company, they give them, I think it's an unbelievable benefits
package that's like the best you can get.
Um, they give them, I think more time off than any other company.
They pretty much give them more perks than what most companies do, but it works
because people are happy to work there.
Travis Bader: I think there's got to be a, um, a balance to that as well.
Angus Hilsley: For
Travis Bader: sure.
Angus Hilsley: You need to figure out what works for you in terms of.
Like productivity and you're not going to start losing money
Travis Bader: because you look at Twitter.
Remember when Elon took over Twitter and he's
Angus Hilsley: like, it's got 80 percent of it, and
Travis Bader: it's still running and doing what it's got to be doing.
It shows you
Angus Hilsley: that doesn't it?
Like you can be very brutal and things can still work, but it's, I think it's
just all about your, Your business though, and your kind of people that
you have working for that business and how you want the image of your business
to look like, for instance, Elon Musk didn't care at all about censorship.
So he's just like, okay, I'm cutting 80 percent of the people that check that.
So it's, it's all about how you want your company to look and Costco
have nailed it the way that they do it and people are happy to work
for them for a long period of time.
And another one that Costco does is they've got a great leadership program.
Okay.
So taking people from when they first join and working with them and educating them
and coaching them up through the kind of seniority rank structure of the company.
And yeah, it works.
And you look at the figures and the charts that's in that book and it's,
it's unbelievable because for somebody to look at that kind of business idea
right at the very start of launching a business, you'd be like, that's craziness.
You're, you're, you're just going to be bleeding money.
Like, but it works.
Like if you give people That a little bit more and show
them that you care about them.
They'll give back a little bit more.
Travis Bader: And they have those amazing hot dogs that always stay the same price.
For one, 1.
50.
That's right.
Angus Hilsley: Crazy.
It's a, it's dangerous game going in there.
I love it.
I love
Travis Bader: it.
Um, I was researching those hot dogs.
I thought they were like Nathan's hot dogs, which I like as well, but, uh,
they make their own, they got their own operation to keep costs down.
Angus Hilsley: Yeah.
Oh, they're so good, man.
It's just, it's a highlight of my day.
Whenever I go to Costco.
I
Travis Bader: don't know how a person could ever go hungry between Ikea
breakfasts and Costco hot dogs or lunch.
It's
Angus Hilsley: the dream.
It's so good.
Not good for the
Travis Bader: waistline.
No, no.
Um, So yeah, Steve jobs, he, I forget who he was talking with, uh, but there
is an interview, I think it was in Forbes and they're just talking about how you
can take a highly productive, highly motivated individual and you put them
into a team environment of underachievers and how quickly that person can.
It just becomes an underachiever with the rest of them.
And likewise, you take this underachiever, put them into a
highly productive environment, how quickly they turn that around.
And all of a sudden they might not be ace number one star, but,
Angus Hilsley: but they're,
Travis Bader: but they're higher than what they started.
Exactly.
Angus Hilsley: Yeah.
And it's like, that's the influence of a team.
Like if you've got huge, yeah.
If you've got a team that's down in the dumps all the time, morale's
low guarantee that there's, they're not going to change their ways.
It takes somebody very, very.
Powerful or inspiring or just an all around good leader to change that.
There's a good example that um, Jocko Willink uses when he was a SEAL
instructor and they had these They do the boat races and there was, I think
it was boat two was always winning.
They had a, uh, a platoon commander who was just an astounding leader.
So good.
Always front of the pack.
Always the first ones to win every event.
It's just unbelievable.
And then they had, I think it was boat six or whatever.
Always last.
Morale was low.
Just never won anything.
And then they swapped leaders.
And I think it was boat six won the next one.
Really?
So it just shows you, like, even though a team's I think the most
important about having a bond, if you've got the right leader, they
can make the, all the difference.
Travis Bader: And there's a psychological component to that as well.
The individuals will say, well, we got the top leader on our team.
We're going to do better.
It's like the Nike effect.
If you're wearing Nikes, you're going to jump higher.
You're going to run faster, right?
Angus Hilsley: Exactly.
Like it's sometimes it's all just a kind of placebo effect, but at
the end of the day, it's like those guys that were coming last, their
fitness didn't change in the space of.
Like 20 minutes, I mean, they were already capable of winning that they
just needed the right leadership.
So it just shows when, when you've got the right person for the job and
they're, they can always change a team regardless of their, their output.
Travis Bader: Now, one thing I've always kind of wondered about, cause you talk
about like bonding, morale, it's like in the military working with the troops
and the respect you have for, let's say a section commander who's looking after
You before looking after themselves.
Cause of course they're going to get in crap of their immaculate, their
kits immaculate, their weapons in order and nobody else's is right.
Because that's, that's a poor leader.
Oh, it works.
Um, but there's going to be a close sort of bond between the
section commander, their section.
Yeah.
Platoon commander is going to have less of a bond company commander is going to
have less of a bond with that section.
Right.
Battalion commander.
And the further up the food chain, it goes, there's a more detached, uh, role.
It's like, just like, that's why you have Uh, an officer's mess and you got the
general ranks mess and they, they kind of, kind of keep the different ranks apart.
Yeah.
Um, that can be difficult in the workplace to the, what, to an individual
who, let's say he was in the section commander position and he's being
promoted up, but he's still in that same, or she is still in that same
workplace in the same environment.
They don't have a separate mess that they're going into.
They don't have a separate group structure that they're dealing with.
Yeah.
Um, is that something you've ever seen or dealt, had to deal with, with people or
like, how, how are those interpersonal.
Uh, relationships going to change as they progress as a leader.
Angus Hilsley: Um, I think it's all about staying humble.
I think it's with a lot of people, power goes to their head.
So when they start promoting up, they're like, oh yeah, I'm a sergeant now.
I'm not going to speak to a corporal or I'm not going to
speak to a lance corporal.
There's no way to speak to a private outside of work.
I think power for some people is.
It has a very negative effect on them as a leader, and I think
I would say majority of people actually kinda sometimes let it go of their head.
Mm-Hmm.
. But you need to have that outlook that if, if your privates aren't working
for you or don't respect respect you, you're not gonna get the desired
effect of what you want to achieve.
Like Mm-Hmm.
, you need to have the same relationship even though you might
not socialize with 'em as much, or you might not see them as much.
You still need to.
Know their first names.
You still need to be able to walk up to them and have a conversation.
You should know Roughly what's going on in their life, maybe not in depth
But you still need to know how they're doing like if they've just had a baby.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, doesn't matter how far up you go.
Like I've worked under some unbelievable leaders that are in charge of 100 plus
men and they could tell you the first names of every single one of them.
And they can probably tell you a little bit about them.
So it's all about, it's all about how much you care.
Like, and as long as you care and you care about your men,
regardless of what position you're in, they'll always work for you.
They'll always understand that you can never, you have the same relationship
as when I was a Lance Corporal hanging out with all my privates.
They know that I can't hang about them in that sense because I've
got to uphold myself to certain standards and a kind of a position.
But as long as I care about them and as long as I still interact
with them with a level of respect, they're always going to respect me.
I think once as long as I care about them, Letting things go to your head
and you start not respecting people is very quick for you to lose that.
Travis Bader: Yeah.
One thing I noticed, if someone's going to tell me that they're the boss, that
they're the leader, they've already lost.
Angus Hilsley: They've already, exactly.
Straight away.
Like sometimes the best and the highest leaders are the most humble people in
the room that you would never expect.
Travis Bader: I very often, I find that the, just salt of the earth.
You'd never expect, it was like, I flew into, um, Uh, Terrace and
was at a friend's, uh, lodge area.
He's got Skeena Spade fly fishing lodge.
And, and, uh, we're talking back and forth.
He's like, you know, actually the owner of Patagonia is in town.
He's doing, he's doing a talk with a local store because they have
some world class fishing over there.
I'm like, oh yeah, owner of Patagonia, they're talking all about this guy.
And then they start describing him.
I'm like, wait a minute.
This guy was on the flight that I flew in with just flying
business class, going in, right.
Wearing old Patagonia clothing, old stuff.
That's all good.
Like you would never even notice it.
Right.
It's just, just regular dude.
Right.
And sure.
Multi multi multi millionaire.
Right.
Angus Hilsley: Just shows you that doesn't that.
Right.
And it's, I've guaranteed he's probably one of the nicest guys you'd ever meet.
Travis Bader: I'm sure.
I wish I had a chance to talk to them.
I even knew who he was.
I just thought odd.
Cause I'm always profiling, I get on the plane and especially when you're
going over, it's like, okay, so that one, this person is an angler.
They're going to be, Oh, this person is going to be working out.
Angus Hilsley: But, uh, checking out your surroundings always.
Of course.
Yeah, definitely.
No, honestly, I couldn't agree more.
I think if we, if we want to talk a little bit more about role models that
I had, one of my dad's best friends was, um, they were very close together.
He was a big part of my life growing up.
Still is a big part of my life just now.
And, uh, And he left, I live in a very rural place in Scotland, left
there, went to business school in London and progressed through it.
Now he's the president of one of the biggest companies in
Hong Kong, like huge, huge.
And this guy is still wearing the same jeans he wore 20 years ago.
Like, if you looked at him, you would think that they had no money.
I don't, and that's probably another guy that I like to kind of use as a role
model is just the most humble, pleasant down to earth guy you would, you would
ever meet and he would, he would buy a drink for anybody in the bar, you
know, he's just one of those types of guys just, and he would sit down and
speak to them, but he's actually just
Travis Bader: huge guy, inspiring leader, doesn't have to show it,
doesn't have to put it in your face and rub your face in it,
Angus Hilsley: and it's, it does instantly make an assessment on some day based off,
Travis Bader: So there's also, um, the wing I've been watching the wing,
um, that, that looks interesting.
Can you tell me about what the wing
Angus Hilsley: is?
Yeah.
So it's, uh, my new business endeavor, um, so I originated
from one of my best friends.
He unfortunately lost his five month old daughter, um, and lost her a little Iris.
And, uh, when he was going through that grieving process, it had just,
uh, overwhelming kind of amount of guys reaching out to him, just offering support
and just being there for him to, to help him through that kind of rough time.
And from that, you got this idea thinking, okay, men need more of a support network.
Like we need something as a collective where men feel comfortable to
speak to other men about similar situations that there have been in.
And And from that he, he came up with this idea of the wing and he came to
me and he's like, what do you think?
And I was like, yeah, I think it sounds amazing to me personally
or something that's very close to my heart is men's mental health.
And I think that men should have as much, um, resources and they
should have as much support as they could possibly have available to
them in terms of mental health.
And we've got a massive problem in today's society with suicide.
And I think that once we talk this over.
We, um, we came up with this kind of forum now that we've got, there's six, six
guys in there that they're all qualified and, um, we've got a counselor, we've
got a nutritionist, we've got a personal trainer, mental health and addiction
coach, I'm doing leadership, um, and then we've got one more on mindset.
And um, These are all certified guys in loads of different areas, loads of
experience, like over, I think we've got 90 years experience or something in the
military alone, and then they've got all their other things, and then we've pretty
much just created a community for men that provides them with all this support and
help in one, you know, um, school network and it's literally a case of you sign up,
comment, and you've got access to all this information on all those things that I've
just, um, said to you and it's just a good way for men to be able to take control
of their lives a little bit better.
So in terms of if they're feeling depressed, they could maybe
start changing their nutrition, because we all know nutrition is
a huge part about how we feel.
Start changing your nutrition, maybe a little bit more awareness
to your nutrition side of things.
But not only that, it's also got an open forum in there where anybody can
post, and it's made to be relatable for men to be able to find other
men in the same situations as them.
So, let's say for instance, you've got an addiction problem, I had an addiction
problem, I've been in the wing for six months, I've went through all the
videos and the kind of training that's in there, I'm now doing really well.
I've came out the other side of it.
I'm now posting about all the progress that I'm making.
It's for you to be able to come and read my posts and be like, okay,
that's exactly where I am just now, but I know that this is achievable
and you can reach out to myself and you can say, okay, how was this?
How did, how did you do this?
Blah, blah, blah.
And you can kind of just create some really good relationships
with like minded people.
And at the end of the day, We all know that it's hard for men to actually
reach out and to say that they've got a problem and I think when you go to
a counsellor or you go to let's say an addiction coach or anything, you're kind
of admitting that you've got a problem but with this it's just a nice relaxed
open forum where you come in you've got six areas that you can improve your
life with and it's just a very easy Nice network that I think will really,
really be beneficial for a lot of guys.
Travis Bader: You know, I, I find some interesting things in there.
So I've, uh, We're going back, Neil Smith, um, did a podcast with him,
uh, he and Bear Grylls are the co founders of a, uh, an app called
metal and it's men's mental fitness.
They call it, and they've got different things and they trying
to gamify and amplify it and have peoples where they can, uh, check
into these different things.
And he's saying that the number one killer of men in the UK between, I
forget what the age span, I think it was like 25 and, you know, I think
45, or maybe it was a larger gap.
Number one killer is men killing themselves.
And he says, I think he says, don't quote me on it.
I think those stats apply throughout the world.
Yeah, definitely.
For sure.
Angus Hilsley: Yeah.
I was looking at Canada.
Canada is pretty much the same.
Travis Bader: Is it?
Angus Hilsley: Yeah, it's, it's crazy.
Travis Bader: So there's an issue there and people are identifying that
there's a problem and people have generally treated, um, you know, Men's
mental health in the same way that they treat women's mental health.
Okay.
Let's sit down.
Let's talk about it.
Let's like you say, admitting that you have a problem, men don't
want to admit they have a problem.
I got it sorted out.
I'm supposed to be strong.
Angus Hilsley: Exactly.
Yeah.
And that's, that, that's what we're trying to kind of like
disarm is the fact that men aren't admitting they've got a problem.
It's just that they want to do better than what they currently are.
So it's not a case of.
Me admitting I've got an addiction problem, it's just, okay, I know that
I'm not doing well, I would like to improve my life, I'm going to join
this, start improving these areas of my life, and then, when they look
back on it, they'll be like, okay, yeah, I did have an addiction problem
that I've now managed to solve.
Travis Bader: One of the things that really struck me about what you're
talking about here, as, as a huge positive, Is, um, that sense of
community talking with other people.
I mean, uh, bill W did it with his 12 step program, right?
With, he got your, after your 12 steps and he'd find someone else and you're in
with, but the, I believe it was the same podcast with, uh, with Neil, I did there.
And he's talking about, you know, you got that one person in your life that
you can talk to, or you can confide in, or as a man be able to turn
around and, uh, you know, Talk about these things that are vulnerable.
Yeah.
And the number of people who private messaged me personally, uh, or posted
on social media or through YouTube or different places or emailed our office
and said, that was a really cool episode.
Um, I don't have anybody.
It'd be cool if I had somebody, I don't have any, the number of people that
have come up and said, I have nobody.
Angus Hilsley: It was, it
Travis Bader: was, yeah.
And I, and honestly, as I look at it, cause I'd follow up with these people
and the thing that I found over and over again, it wasn't that they had nobody.
It wasn't that they didn't have anybody.
It was that they didn't feel they could reach out and talk about these things
because I'm can almost guarantee you those other people in their life would
turn around and say the exact same thing.
I don't have anybody who I can say these things to.
Angus Hilsley: And it's, yeah, it's crazy just how, how little
support they think they have.
Right.
When, when they do have support, but it's just how they approach that support.
Travis Bader: Right.
And, and even if you don't think you have the support within your, in your,
your circle, uh, David Ward, some people who follow, uh, Myself or other
people within the same social media circles, uh, will know David Ward.
I think his, uh, Instagram handle is bushwookie.
Yeah.
Um, XPP CLI.
And I was talking with a friend of mine on Christmas, uh, sub
Lavois and said, how you doing?
Not good.
He says, what's going on?
Oh, one of the guys starts going through telling me about David
here, tried to take his own life.
Right.
Um, Ended up, uh, not succeeding and, uh, he's got some life changing, uh,
repercussions from this, but an individual who was under the influence of alcohol
at the time, during a dark time of the year, both literally and figuratively
for a lot of people, uh, feeling like he didn't have support or others in his life
he could reach out to, uh, And the massive amount of people that have rallied around
him and continue to touch base with him and the people's lives he has touched in
a positive way, despite that negative, um, dark moment in his life has been able
to turn into something very positive.
So even if people don't think they have it directly in front of them, there's
others out there, maybe something like the wing is a perfect place to.
For sure.
I
Angus Hilsley: think that's a perfect example of, of, of what's
going on out there in the world.
And at the end of the day, I don't think that we can have enough
support for it, you know what I mean?
I think as long as we keep approaching this in different ways and providing
loads of different kind of, um, areas for men to kind of try to improve themselves
mentally or physically or whatever it may be, spiritually, like as long as we've,
We're trying to develop as many ways as possible to try and solve this problem.
I think we'll, we'll make, make a big difference.
Travis Bader: And I think the other part is being able to surround
yourself with other people who have like, uh, aspirations.
Yeah.
I mean, if you're sitting in the pub and you're like, I'm going to
be physically fit, I'm going to be mentally, I want to work on my
spiritual side, whatever it might be.
And all your mates are looking at you like, Who is this guy?
Right?
Oh,
Angus Hilsley: for sure.
Like if you're hanging around people that don't want to have any
ambition in their life and they're quite happy doing things that are
having a detrimental effect on you.
You'll never change your life.
Travis Bader: And oftentimes you don't know that detrimental effect that's
happening when you're in the thick of it.
Angus Hilsley: No, you need to get outside of that.
And you need to be around people that are doing the things that
you want to do for you to realize, okay, right, wait a minute here.
There's the, I need to make a change.
Yeah.
And that's not saying that you need to start cutting out
your friends in your life.
Sometimes you do.
Maybe you got to pull the weeds.
Sometimes you need to, but sometimes you just need to prioritize how much
time you spend with certain people.
For instance, I'll have people in my life that don't have any ambition or
any desire to do anything better for themselves, still love them as a person,
still love hanging out with them.
But if I'm wanting to actually grow and improve myself, they're not the
types of people I'd hang around with.
Travis Bader: Totally.
Angus Hilsley: I've got my group of friends that I'd hang
around with that are hustlers.
Yeah.
They're always after it.
Yeah.
And it's, yeah, it's honestly, I'm very excited for it.
Will.
B.
M.
We'll be going live on the 13th of May.
Right now we're just having a waiting list.
So it's, if anybody is interested, it's just the wing on Instagram,
just underscore the wing and you can follow the wing.
And when we do go live, people can come and have a look at it.
But right now we're just building building all our content.
So it's going to be a case of once you join it, jump in, you're going to have
um, three videos from each person that you can work through and then there's going
to be little bits of homework, there's going to be recommended books that we
recommend you read, um, there's going to be fitness challenges, there's going to be
loads of different things in there, loads and loads and it's, yeah, very exciting.
Travis Bader: Um, and what about for, um, stoic leadership?
Angus Hilsley: Yeah, stoic leadership is going well right now.
I'm still moving through my proof of concept for my business.
Um, so predominantly I'm targeting my, um, business towards corporate.
Um, and I want to be trying to focus on taking all my experiences from a military
side of things and converting it into kind of relatable and usable tool in the
corporate world because I've been through quite a lot of leadership courses outside
of the army and with businesses and these, but these leadership courses are good at
allowing you to improve certain outside skills to make you a better person.
So let's see if that's body language reading or communication
or all these types of things that refine you as a person.
I think that.
these courses are very good at, it doesn't give you a step by step plan of how to
be a better leader in the thick of it.
Do you know what I mean?
In terms of if you're walking into a new job or a new environment or a
stressful environment, you need to have a layout in your head of how
you are going to be a good leader.
And yes, like all these things, Improving all these things are going to make
you a better person, but sometimes you just need to be able to think back.
Okay, on that course I learned, I need to do this, this, this and this.
And going through that process will allow you to make your
team the way you want it to be.
Travis Bader: If there's one thing the military is good for, it's
been able to systemize things
Angus Hilsley: massively,
Travis Bader: get a lot of top level information into a very simple format.
Angus Hilsley: Simplicity is key.
That's one of the, one of the main things that I talk about
as well as stoic leadership academy, it's simplicity is key.
Like if you start taking things just completely until the realms, you
just need to keep it simple and just.
Just go through a step by step process and don't get me wrong You can bolster
loads of different things onto this step by step process to improve it But you
need to just have a format that you can use as a leader because some people that
I've seen just get Putting management positions just because they've been
at the company for five years, right?
They've done absolutely zero Training as a leader,
Travis Bader: but it's
Angus Hilsley: just because they've been at the company for five years.
Okay.
Right.
You're ready for management.
Travis Bader: Yeah.
Angus Hilsley: And it's like, well, have you ever done any management?
No.
Do you know anything about leadership?
No.
Very often.
That's the case a lot.
And that's what I'm trying to target.
So Now with my business, that's who I'm working with.
I'm working with a few companies in Vancouver just now, um, on
how they're going to change that.
So it's going to be a case of the, they'll go through my curriculum
and they'll go through my training.
And once I've done that, then it'll be a year thing where they'll come
and do just a little refresher, not as in depth as what I first did,
but a little refresher to see where they're at and how they've put it into
practice and how they can change it.
And then eventually I'm going to be moving into actual leadership days.
So I'm going to, once I've got it completely established, it's going to be
a case of businesses are going to send their teams to me or their leaders to me.
And then we're going to go through different, um, experiences, different
environments, different scenarios.
And they're going to put everything that I've taught them in the
theoretical side into practice.
Travis Bader: That sounds amazing.
That sounds like a lot of fun.
Angus Hilsley: Yeah, that's, that's the, the main goal.
So if we're just, now, I'm just delivering the theory side of Stoic Leadership
Academy to, to these businesses and we're gonna move on to the online,
online side of things pretty soon.
Uh, right now it's just physical, but that's the end goal is working
actually in person with these leaders.
After they've learned the theoretical side, they're gonna come.
Come to us.
We're going to take them through all these different scenarios, and then
we're just going to observe them and then we're going to give them kind
of an after action review on how they did, and then we're going to start
coaching them on how they can improve the skills that they've already learned,
but just start making it better.
I'm looking forward to seeing
Travis Bader: that.
Angus Hilsley: Yeah, it should be really good.
It's exciting.
Travis Bader: Is there anything else we should talk about
that we haven't talked about?
Angus Hilsley: Um, I think we've got it all covered to be honest.
Yeah.
In terms of a little bit about me, a little bit about leadership.
Stoic Leadership Academy in the wing.
That's pretty much all that's taken up my, taking up my time just now.
I'm also training for a triathlon that I've got as well.
I saw that.
Yeah.
I'm a first ever triathlon.
That's a, it's exactly a month today.
It's happening.
So never mountain bike before my life, my swimming is abysmal.
So it's going to be, it's going to be a kind of fun experience, but we're doing
it for charity, so it's a good cause.
That'll be
Travis Bader: good.
Yeah.
Angus, so much for being on the Suffolk World Podcast.
You're welcome.
Anytime.
Angus Hilsley: No, thank you very much.
It's been, it's been great fun.
Thank you.